The conference absolutely needs to lawyer up to try and get back every penny it can from these clowns, but this whole thing sounds like fraud....knowingly inflating the value of your property (thanks to an overpayment you knew about) to your investors (the schools) while you make a bunch of money (in bonuses). Obviously it's on a much smaller scale, but is this really that much different than Enron or Theranos?
If the conference was a public company this 'accounting non-disclosure' would be a violation of the SEC (government not the SEC conference) reporting requirements.
Even with this being outside SEC jurisdiction, I would think there must be some legal means by which you cannot *knowingly* overcharge a client for the purpose of inflating the value of your product so you look good to your bosses and collect a bigger bonus. I know intent might be hard to prove in court, but the fact that an audit was performed and still no one did anything for years is pretty strong evidence. Publicly traded or not, fraud is fraud.
At the very least, if I'm Kliavkoff I'm telling the Pac-12's General Counsel to reach out to the US Attorney for NorCal (whose attention this may already have received) and brief them on everything they know so far and let them know the conference is prepared to fully cooperate if they decide to investigate.
Unfortunately there is no recourse. In the corporate world lawyers would bring forth and civil suit on behalf of the injured parties, the stockholders. In this case the injured parties are the company themselves and I am sure the contracts in place protected the executives in charge. Now if they committed financial fraud that is a criminal matter and should be prosecuted as such. The thing is that while they may end up in jail any resulting financial penalties are paid by the Pac-12. Those penalties would provide justification for a civil suit. As for the lost $$ already gone not much the Pac-12 can do about it.
Or at the very least civil suits against the two fired employees and also against Scott who knew or should have known about this accounting 'error.'
I sure do not want to see Oregon paying back 'its share' of the overpayment without going after Scott and his friends.
The conference absolutely needs to lawyer up to try and get back every penny it can from these clowns, but this whole thing sounds like fraud....knowingly inflating the value of your property (thanks to an overpayment you knew about) to your investors (the schools) while you make a bunch of money (in bonuses). Obviously it's on a much smaller scale, but is this really that much different than Enron or Theranos?
If the conference was a public company this 'accounting non-disclosure' would be a violation of the SEC (government not the SEC conference) reporting requirements.
Even with this being outside SEC jurisdiction, I would think there must be some legal means by which you cannot *knowingly* overcharge a client for the purpose of inflating the value of your product so you look good to your bosses and collect a bigger bonus. I know intent might be hard to prove in court, but the fact that an audit was performed and still no one did anything for years is pretty strong evidence. Publicly traded or not, fraud is fraud.
At the very least, if I'm Kliavkoff I'm telling the Pac-12's General Counsel to reach out to the US Attorney for NorCal (whose attention this may already have received) and brief them on everything they know so far and let them know the conference is prepared to fully cooperate if they decide to investigate.
Unfortunately there is no recourse. In the corporate world lawyers would bring forth and civil suit on behalf of the injured parties, the stockholders. In this case the injured parties are the company themselves and I am sure the contracts in place protected the executives in charge. Now if they committed financial fraud that is a criminal matter and should be prosecuted as such. The thing is that while they may end up in jail any resulting financial penalties are paid by the Pac-12. Those penalties would provide justification for a civil suit. As for the lost $$ already gone not much the Pac-12 can do about it.